26.10.12 | day five ‘building community’

The fifth day of ‘Building Community’… a little bit of a challenging day, with some delays and confusion – but we got through it in the end! In the morning Clem popped up to Chhaya to check everything was going well with the training… and the mothers’ work has really improved! But back to the site, here’s the day, as described by Mari, a 2nd Year NTNU student:

Today was the second day of school after the holiday for the children, and they were all so happy. It seems like they love talking to us, and they are really eager to try out the phrases they have learned in English. But even though the children is at school, we can still do our digging, sawing and designing at the site. The timber construction group worked out all the joints, so that we will be ready to start on the first frame tomorrow. They also started on the form work for the concrete casting tomorrow. On the other side of the site, the foundation-group finished up digging the ditch for the casting of the concrete foundation. After that they filled it with gravel. The first load of gravel that was ordered was a pile of huge stones – another mistake due to miscommunication. After a lot of waiting we got the gravel that we needed, so that the water during the monsoon can be drained. We also ordered water, plywood and reinforcement bars, which took hours to arrive. That’s India! So we had some more chai…

arifa’s work

red inked fabric

inez cutting the joints

jone the happy carpenter

the beautiful timber angles to use as a jig for making the frames

yanchee compacting the foundations

screening the earth to separate the gravel (before the truckload arrived!)